Harvard Economist: 42 Percent of Immigrant Households on Public Assistance

A Harvard economist has found that nearly 42 percent of immigrant households in the United States are on public assistance of some kind.

“In 2016, there were 8.9 million households headed by a non-citizen … almost 42 percent of those households received some type of assistance,” George Borjas, Professor of Economics and Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, wrote on his website on Feb. 1.

To come to his conclusions Borjas used census data from 1994 to 2016 to calculate how many of the migrant-headed households receive either money, food stamps, or Medicaid.

According to Borjas, millions of households could be impacted if existing immigration laws are adhered to.